<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>I Could Never Forgive Myself by melodicBooknerd13</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25683415">I Could Never Forgive Myself</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodicBooknerd13/pseuds/melodicBooknerd13'>melodicBooknerd13</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, I love these boys but I can't seem to write them happy, M/M, Major Character Injury, no beta we die like Glenn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:07:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25683415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/melodicBooknerd13/pseuds/melodicBooknerd13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Linhardt watched as his best friend, and love of his life, collapsed to the ground, having taken a bolt of lightning to protect him.</p><p>Alternatively titled "sleepy boy is traumatized but the ending isn't sad."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Could Never Forgive Myself</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In Linhardt’s eyes, the battle had been going fairly well. There wasn’t anything more than some minor injuries to his allies so far, and even though he had to attack the enemy sometimes, he didn’t have to deal with blood, which was always a plus for him.</p><p>Caspar was close by, making sure to take care of anyone who got too close. Linhardt looked around to see if any of his allies were in need of healing. He didn’t mean to let his guard down, he knew better than to do that on a damn battlefield.</p><p>“Lin!” Caspar cried out, shoving Linhardt out of the way as a bolting from a hidden mage rained down onto him.</p><p>“Caspar!” He screamed, momentarily terrified. Linhardt spotted the mage and blasted her down harder than he could ever remember casting magic on someone, he didn’t even know what spell he used. But the enemy was down.</p><p>He scrambled over to the grappler currently on the ground, barely conscious, and attempted to carry/drag him off the battlefield, yelling out for his allies to cover for him.</p><p>Linhardt brought him behind a tree off to the side of the battlefield, making sure the coast was clear.</p><p>Goddess, there’s so much blood. He would be lightheaded, if there wasn’t adrenaline shooting through his veins.</p><p>“Linhardt, wh… what happened?” Caspar mutters quietly, almost unintelligibly, before coughing up blood.</p><p>“Just stay awake, Caspar. You’re not allowed to die on me.”</p><p>He focused himself, put his hands to the large section of charred flesh in Caspar’s side, and put all of his energy into trying to heal him, muttering different versions of “Don’t you dare die on me” and “stop bleeding” and “stay awake, please Goddess keep him awake,” as well as occasionally just muttering “fuck.” At some point he starts sobbing, though he can’t be sure when.</p><p>Linhardt was terrified. He and Caspar were going to make it out of this war alive, no matter what the cost. 15 years of friendship was too much to lose in one day. The the love of his life was not going to die, right there in front of him, because he had tried to protect him. He wouldn’t allow it.</p><p>They hadn’t been together for all that long. They had finally reunited when they had joined their classmates for the five year reunion at the monastery, when the professor had miraculously returned to them. He’d loved him for years, though. First as a best friend, and later as more than that. One stupid war wasn’t about to rip that from him.</p>
<hr/><p>He had no idea how long he had been crouched over Caspar, but judging by the fact that he awoke in the infirmary, apparently collapsing from exhaustion in the process of healing him, it had been a while. He was perfectly fine, aside from the exhaustion (though that was nothing Linhardt wasn’t already used to, anyways).</p><p>He found Caspar on the other end of the room, sleeping, incredibly torn up. He tried to approach him, but Manuela stopped him. “Caspar needs to rest, Linhardt. Even with all that you did, he was still badly beaten up.”</p><p>Linhardt couldn’t accept being turned away. He would beg on his knees, if it came to that.</p><p>“Please, let me stay here with him. I’ll help heal the other injured, I’ll do whatever you need me to,” he pleaded.</p><p>Manuela eventually relented, seeing the desperation in his eyes, and allowed him to stay and help the other patients.</p><p>Eventually, it had gotten late, and most of the patients had been taken care of. Linhardt pulled up a chair next to where Caspar was sleeping, and sat down, watching his chest move with each shallow breath. He doesn’t remember gently grabbing Caspar’s hand, but when he realizes he has, he doesn’t let go.</p><p>He blamed himself for this. It was his fault Caspar had gotten hurt. If he had seen the hidden mage, if he had been paying more attention, Caspar wouldn’t be laying in the infirmary, a bandage covering a massive spot in his side where the skin had been severely burned.</p><p>Even when it healed, there would still be a scar. A large black mark on his side, like someone had dumped a small cup of ash onto his side and it wouldn’t come off, a testament to the damage that dark magic can do to a person. Seeing that scar will just remind Linhardt of his mistakes, his failure to protect the person who meant the most to him.</p><p>Slowly, Linhardt drifts off as well, still sitting in the chair, hand over Caspar’s, head filled with nightmares, as he relives the moment over and over, sometimes watching Caspar die in his arms.</p>
<hr/><p>By the time Linhardt wakes up from the last nightmare, Caspar is already awake.</p><p>“Lin?” Caspar’s voice is weak. Linhardt knows how much Caspar hates feeling weak.</p><p>“Thank the Goddess, you’re okay. Please, don’t do that again. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, knowing that I wasn’t able to save you.” He was relieved. Caspar was alive, and awake, and seemingly doing better than he could have been. He reaches out and gently squeezes Caspar’s hand.</p><p>“If I hadn’t knocked you out of the way, then that lightning bolt would have hit you!”</p><p>A new wave of guilt floods over Linhardt. Caspar had knocked him out of the way to save him from getting hit by a bolt of lightning. Lightning, the one thing Caspar feared more than almost anything else. Goddess, he wouldn’t be able to live with this.</p><p>They sit in silence for a while, before Caspar falls back asleep, still exhausted from the pain. Linhardt watches him for a while, but eventually returns to his own room, knowing there wasn’t anyone left to treat in the infirmary, and that Manuela would probably ask him to leave eventually.</p>
<hr/><p>Even so many years later, Linhardt still had nightmares about that battle. They weren’t as frequent as they had been early on, but they would still come up. Sometimes they would end with Caspar dying immediately on impact. Others, with him dying slowly, while Linhardt watched, unable to do anything to save him. Those nights hurt the most. Even though he can finally close his eyes without seeing Caspar laying on the ground, coughing up blood, the image still haunts him in his sleep.</p><p>Sometimes Caspar would feel a jolt of electricity coursing through his body, and Linhardt would always be there, gently soothing the pain with magic. There were times when the pair were in bed, and he’d stare at the scar on Caspar’s side, a permanent smudge of coal among several other battle scars. He would tilt Linhardt’s head up, remind him that everything’s okay now. He was always there to help his love through the nightmares, even if he didn’t remember any of the battle past the world suddenly going white, and then just as suddenly completely dark.</p><p>It slowly got better. Linhardt was still there to calm Caspar down during a storm, knowing his fear of lightning was still there, even if it didn’t affect him as much as it had when they were younger. Caspar was always there to remind him that it wasn’t his fault, whenever Linhardt was feeling guilty over it all.</p><p>Even if it hurt, they were still all right, in the end.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you all so much for reading this! I've had this story in my head for quite a while, the images brutally vivid in my head. I could hear everything Linhardt was saying as I watched this play out in my head weeks before I thought to turn it into a fic. I hope you all enjoyed this!</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>